Skin and soft tissue infections in critical care.

Clinicians in the critical care setting see extensive, severe, and often necrotizing infection, as well as atypical or unusual infection that can be misdiagnosed, resulting in delays in treatment. Greater numbers of immunocompromised patients are at risk for both types of infection. A thorough understanding of various etiologies and presentations of these infections is essential, as is the ability to discriminate between infectious and noninfectious etiologies.